EDHEC-Risk Institute, NEST, European Patent Office, BlackRock, Eastspring Investments, PIMCO, Aviva Investors, AMP Capital, Psigma, HSBC Global Asset Management, PwC, RBS, Capital Employee Benefits

EDHEC-Risk Institute – Mark Fawcett, CIO of the trustee body running the £1bn (€1.1bn) UK mastertrust NEST, has been appointed chairman of the institute’s international advisory board. He replaces Tomas Franzén, who is chief investment strategist at Sweden’s AP2 but retiring at the end of the year to pursue non-executive roles. The role of the EDHEC-Risk Institute international advisory board is to consult on the relevance and goals of the research programme proposals presented by the centre’s management and to evaluate research outcomes with respect to their potential impact on industry practices. It counts 35 members. Franzén has been at AP2 since its inception in 2001. He was appointed chief investment strategist in 2006 and has worked alongside the chief investment officer, Hans Fahlin, since 2010.

European Patent Office – Silvio Vecchi is reported to be due to step down from his role as principal director of the European Patent Office’s pension fund at the end of the year, to be replaced by Thomas Groffmann, former COO for Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe at BlackRock. Vecchi has been leading the pension fund for nearly 20 years.

Eastpring Investments – The Asian investment management arm of Prudential has appointed Virginie Maisonneuve as CIO. Maisonneuve will start in her new role on 11 January 2017. She has almost 30 years of global asset management experience, having most recently been CIO of equities at PIMCO. Before that, she was head of global equities, director and portfolio manager for more than 10 years at Schroders. She has also previously worked at Clay Finlay, State Street Research, Batterymarch and Martin Currie. 

Aviva Investors – Gary Sherwin has been appointed head of UK investment transactions, a new role. He spent 16 years at Land Securities. Daniel Lienhard has joined in Germany as head of investment transactions, based in Frankfurt. He was previously at Savills Investment Management. Gaston Brandes has been appointed managing director and head of real estate business development. He joins from Grosvenor Fund Management. Helen Rainsford has been appointed senior director of retail development and joins from Martins Properties. Darren Freed has been appointed as retail asset manager and joins from Hammerson. 

AMP Capital – The investment manager has re-structured its global equities and fixed income business. In the latter, the changes are designed to “provide greater proximity between research and portfolio construction and management in global fixed income”. They involve the creation of two new roles – a senior portfolio manager within the macro team and a portfolio analyst within the credit team – and the scrapping of the role of head of credit and core, having been held by David Carruthers. The changes to the equities business are said to reflect increased investor interest in listed real assets. AMP is bringing together its two listed real estate capabilities – listed infrastructure and listed real estate – under the leadership of Matthew Hoult in the new role of head of global listed real assets. As a result of the new structure, Tim Humphreys, head of global listed infrastructure, will leave the role. 

Psigma Investment Management – Sanjeev Chopra is joining as investment director in January, having most recently been client director at HSBC Global Asset Management. Chopra will report to John Howard-Smoth, Psigma chief executive. Chopra worked at HSBC for nearly 20 years.

PwC – Sinead Leahy, former head of UK pensions solutions at Royal Bank of Scotland, has joined as a partner in PwC’s pension consulting business. She will lead the firm’s focus on strategy and implementation advice to trustees of large defined benefit schemes as part of PwC’s pension investment consulting services.

Capita Employee Benefits – The UK employee benefits business has made four senior appointments in its investment consultancy practice. Chris Gill and Hiten Nandha have joined as senior investment consultants, coming from Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, respectively. Tom Hawthorn, who joined as a senior investment consultant from LCP towards the end of 2015, has been promoted to head of manager research. Brendan Coffey joins as head of investment strategy, having previously worked at Unilever as Univest director of operations.

Topics